Jonathan Franzen - The Twenty-Seventh City - A Novel

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Devi was rattling the doorknob. Jammu crossed the kitchen and let her in. “I’ll take your coat,” she said.

Devi hunched her shoulders. “No.” She tried to shake back her hair, but it didn’t move; the collar held it close against her head. Her gloved hands trembled and sought relief in touching her face, her very exquisite face, and found none.

“How are you?” Jammu said.

Devi dropped onto the sofa and dug her wet heels into the cushions. She peeled off her gloves and balled them into wads. “You know.”

“You’re very early.” She got no answer. “Wait here.”

The safe was under the counter in the kitchen. Her spare safe and the uncut heroin she’d brought from Bombay were buried in Illinois. What was here was cut to 6 percent. She punched in the lock combination, released the latch, and rolled out the drawer. The gas elements were visible through the mesh the drugs and passports rested on, ready to burn if the safe was tampered with. Sick of Devi’s frequent visits, Jammu did not bother measuring out the usual amount but returned with a 50-gram bag.

The living room was chokingly perfumed. Devi snatched the bag from her fingers and locked herself in the bathroom.

While the teapot warmed, Jammu parted the curtains on the tiny kitchen window and raised the shade. Snow had collected on the outer sill. In the alley, glass clattered. A Balaban employee had dropped some bottles in a dumpster. Standing on tiptoe, he reached in after them. His shoulder jerked. Something smashed, tinkled, smashed. He was breaking the bottles on each other.

Devi came out of the bathroom with her coat over her arm and her purse in her hands. “I want to stay here tonight,” she said.

Jammu sat down on the sofa and poured tea. “I get up at five-thirty.”

“I can sleep on the divan. Do you have a cigarette?”

Jammu nodded at the kitchen. “On top of the refrigerator.”

“Do you want one?”

“No.”

Devi’s youth was showing. She was twenty-two. In Bombay Jammu had been thrifty with her labor force, mothering her girls instead of just using them until they wore out. She’d regulated Devi’s habits, handled her money, given her an allowance, and paid for monthly medical checkups. Now, in St. Louis, she was trying to wean her.

Devi returned French-inhaling and swinging her hips. “These are stale.”

Jammu laughed. “Where are yours?”

“I quit yesterday. I’m a Sagittarius.” She flicked her ash into the rug. “What are you?”

“Leo, I suppose.”

“What’s your birthday?”

“August nineteenth.”

“You’re almost a cusp. Mine’s next week. Tuesday.” She saw the tea and made a face. “Do you have anything else?”

Jammu nodded again at the kitchen and gloomily regarded the cup and saucer on her lap. She wanted to be asleep. In the kitchen a beer bottle gasped. Devi came back with an Amstel Light and a cigarette in one hand, a jar of olives in the other. She drank from the bottle and Jammu winced at how close to her eye she brought the coal.

“This is ninety-five calories, but it’s all carbohydrate. I was under a thousand until this.” She tried to remove a boot using her other foot, stumbled for balance, and finally got it off by wedging the heel against a sofa leg. She smiled and blinked at Jammu. “I’d rather have thirty olives than a martini. It’s the same amount of calories. I found out the other day how they tell how many calories food has? It’s called a calorimeter. Rolf’s company makes them.”

She paused. Don’t answer, Jammu told herself.

“They burn food. They burn it and they see how much extra heat it gives off.” Devi propped her beer dangerously on the seat of the rocking chair and yanked off the other boot. “So I said, How do they burn milk ? I thought I had him. He said they heat it until it boils and then they boil it until it burns. I had a picture of scientists in white coats standing around watching milk burn, and I don’t know what came over me, I started laughing, and then he spanked me.” She frowned at the smoked-out butt in her hand.

“Tell him to cut it out.”

Through a smile, Devi mouthed a sentence.

“What?”

“I’m going to shoot his wife.”

Jammu closed her eyes.

“I’m only joking.”

“It isn’t funny.”

“I said I was only joking.”

She heard Devi open the refrigerator. She looked and saw her digging in the yogurt carton with a spoon. “Right between the eyes, Audreykins!”

“Don’t eat that,” Jammu said.

Startled, Devi turned, her eyes wide. “Why not?”

“Because I said.”

Devi stood frozen with indecision, the loaded spoon poised above the carton. Jammu set down her tea. She shut the refrigerator door, took the spoon from Devi and tapped the glistening yogurt back into the carton. “Listen,” she said. “You’re probably exhausted. I’m going to call you a cab, and you can go back and get lots of sleep, and I’ll tell you what. We’ll see if you can fly home to Bombay for your birthday.”

Devi’s head shook no. “He’s my only friend,” she said.

“He’s a rotten spoiled bastard.”

The slap caught Jammu off guard. She spun into the sink, and the pain sprang like an answering hand from within her cheek. She looked back with lidded eyes.

Devi had sunk to her knees. “He’s in love with Barbie.”

There was something wrong here. Normally Devi was a lamb after a fix. “Did you just shoot up or didn’t you?”

“Please let me stay here.”

“No.” Jammu pulled her to her feet by the hair. A single tear had rolled a black track down her cheek. Jammu called a cab and then wiped the mascara away with a dishcloth.

Devi frowned. “What time is it?”

“Put your boots on.” Jammu followed her into the living room. “You said Rolf was in love with — another woman?”

Devi nodded, pulling on her boots with underwater indolence. “Barbie.”

“Barbie who?”

“You know. The sister.”

Jammu felt sicker than ever to her stomach. It took a conscious effort not to run to the refrigerator and grab the vodka. “Barbara Probst?”

“We played Martin and Barbie.” Devi had unzipped her corduroys and was plucking on the black fabric of her underpants. “See we—”

“Zip up your pants,” Jammu said.

A car honked in the street. Devi allowed her coat to be pulled onto her. Jammu placed her purse in her hands. “Don’t lose this.”

Devi shook her head obediently.

“You’ll be all right.”

It was the subcontractor’s fault. The concrete was like gluey oatmeal. It was the subcontractor’s fault. Probst was running across the freshly poured foundation at Westhaven. He was following a trail of footprints, trying to catch the man who’d made them. (Was it the subcontractor?) A skin of rainwater covered the concrete, mirroring the blue sky, but the sky wasn’t blue; it was the color of concrete. A purple bird flew across it, heckling and jeckling in its spiny tongue. Probst ran on and came to the crest of a concrete hill overlooking a concrete valley. The footprints, gouged into the slope, led to a figure far down in the basin. It was Jack DuChamp. The purple bird circled in the slaggy sky. Martin! The cry came from Jack, but it sounded like a bird. The footprints tugged Probst downwards. As he approached he saw that Jack had sunk into the concrete up to his waist, and that his eyes were crusted over with blood. They were cracked, swollen sockets. The eyeballs had been pecked out. Probst stopped, and Jack said, “Martin?” in a voice ragged with fear. Probst couldn’t speak. He grasped Jack under the shoulders to lift him up, but when he raised him he saw that Jack had no legs. Probst set him down again and Jack whimpered: Am I going to die? Probst couldn’t speak. He laid his hands on Jack’s forehead and inadvertently brushed the crusted eyes. They were soft. They felt like breasts, and Probst began to stroke them. Nipples came to life beneath his palms.